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Saturday, February 19, 2011

I Can Cook: Rustico Cooking

A friend received a gift certificate for an Italian cooking class through Rustico Cooking and I was more than happy to accompany her! After much deliberation (they all sounded so good), we finally decided on the Classics of the Italian Home Kitchen course featuring:

Truffled Eggplant & Mushroom Lasagna

Slow-Cooked Pork Chops with Olives & White Wine

Stuffed Baby Zucchini with Herbs & Parmigiano

Light-as-Air Tiramisu

The classes were quite big, a little too big for my taste, but the instructors did a good job making sure that everyone got involved at some point in the process. My friend and I missed the preparation of the pork chops for the most part. We witnessed the making of the béchamel sauce for the lasagna and got hands on cooking the mushrooms & eggplant. The instructors made the pasta by hand then divvied it up so that we each got to roll out a piece in the pasta roller. We were also involved in the assembly of the zucchini, lasagna, and tiramisu. Then before we knew it it was time to enjoy the spoils! Everything was delicious even though the instructors felt like the pork didn't come out as tender as they would like.

Honestly, I don't see myself making these recipes at home. They are a little more involved than I typically like to tackle, but more importantly they were all chock full of cheese, oil, and cream. Also, I missed a lot of preparation steps, so didn't feel entirely confident that I could take any of these from start to finish (except for the Tiramisu). However, it was a really fun time and it was very smoothly run. I was really impressed with the timing of everything and that they got us out the door when they said they would. Would definitely recommend as a fun afternoon with a girlfriend or a date!